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So it’s been a full year (almost) since I’ve posted on this page. Having nothing to do with it being a new year, I’m going to leave some more stuff here in the coming months. It has most to do with me being excited about a lot of upcoming things, regardless of the year.

For starters my sextet’s next show is also our last show before going into EastSide Sound Studio to record on January 16. The band is sounding on top of it, so this would be a good one to check out. Show details:

I’m excited about this music. Some other things on the horizon are the release of Party Pack ICE (details VERY soon–been a long time in the making), recording with Chris Hoffman’s trio (one of my favorite bands to play in), a number of great shows (listed in the Performances section of this very site, and pulling together the bills for March at A.E. Randolph Presents which I’ll be curating. Also, as always there is great music at 65Fen Music Series in Flatbush. We have a great crew of curators–we’ve welcomed Caroline Davis and Jean Rowe to join the long time crew of myself, Anais Maviel, Patrick Breiner, and Jake Henry. So stay tuned. I promise some good things to come.

A long-standing band of mine, Party Pack Ice, recorded an album last year. The playing on the record sounds great, and I’m currently working with Nathaniel Morgan to finish the mixes. We should have a finished product by the Spring time. One of my favorite tracks on the album had two versions that I really loved, but it didn’t make sense to have the same song on the album twice. So I have released the alternate take of a song called The Stephanies via Bandcamp. Please enjoy the track free of charge! It was mixed and rough mastered by Nathaniel Morgan, and features these awesome musicians:

Hey Friends! It’s been a little while, and maybe about time for me to post some 2015 happenings and updates. Some great things on the horizon for the return of Out of Your Head Brooklyn and our new home Threes Brewing, and some recordings that should be coming soon. Also the music series that I help curate (65Fen Music Series) is off a great start and really has some momentum–read all about this stuff below. Or if you’ve had enough, carry on! Some updates:

Out of Your Head Brooklyn:

We have a new home for the series to occur monthly at a great new venue in Gowanus, Brooklyn called Threes Brewing. We did our debut event in the space with three bands, and three VERY different sets of music. It was great fun, and a huge success all around, so we’ve been invited to return. In the interest of keeping the series fresh, and keeping attendance always up I have decided to just do OOYH BK once a month, but with three sets each night. Might as well make it a hang, right? The new venue is awesome–they have great beer, and are some of the friendliest folks around, so please try to check one of these out! The upcoming dates are:

BeepHonk (Dave Ballou, Anthony Pirog, Mike Kuhl, and myself) is a band that came to life in Baltimore after a chance meeting on a night Out of Your Head about 4 years ago. It was so good that we made it a band, but until now had not recorded any music with the group. We went into Ben Frock’s awesome new Baltimore studio Heartwood Sound Studio. It looks like we got an album’s worth of material, so we’ll be doing something with it in the later part of this year.

Party Pack ICE is a band I started in NY, but when I still lived in Baltimore. It started as a guitar trio of myself, Dustin Carlson, and Nathan Ellman-Bell, but after doing one performance (and only one performance to date!) with Patrick Breiner & Eric Trudel both on tenor saxophones, I decided to never go back to the trio. I have a lot of music that I wrote between 2011 and now for the band, and it’s time to get it on record. In mid-March Nathaniel Morgan will be recording the band, and who knows when it will see the light of day, but I’m excited to get it down on tape.

Also, I’m hopefully finally getting the Lubbock record mastered and released. Lubbock is a Baltimore-based dectet that is very near and dear to my heart, consisting of some of my best friends and favorite musicians anywhere. We recorded a 7-track album in January 2012, with compositions by myself, Dave Ballou, Eric Trudel, and Colin Renick. I love the record, and I’m excited to hopefully soon allow it to see the light of day! Lubbock is John Dierker, Eric Trudel, Cam Collins, and Colin Renick on reeds, Dave Ballou, Brent Madsen, and Jim McFalls on brass, and Chris Pumphrey, myself, and Nathan Ellman-Bell in the rhythm section.

65Fen Music Series:

There is a great new music series happening in Flatbush Brooklyn that I am really happy to be a part of as one of six curators. 65Fen Music Series is a weekly event (every Monday night) featuring two sets of music by two different bands. Each week is curated by one of Josh Sinton, Patrick Breiner, Michael Foster, Sean Ali, Jake Henry, or myself. The greater number of curators than normal really allows for a huge range of different types of bookings, so it’s been quite different so far from week-to-week. My next week of curating will happen on Monday March 9 and feature .michael. (Michael Sachs & Michael Buishas) at 8:30pm, and Patrick Breiner’s Double Double at 9:45pm. More information and a full schedule can be found at 65fenmusicseries.tumblr.com.

Upcoming Performances:

And some upcoming performances that I am particularly excited about (please see the performances page of this site for a more comprehensive list and more details about the following):

I had an amazing time premiering my new quartet (which will hopefully soon have a better name!) at the Evolving Music Series. The fine people who run Vision Fest run this series weekly on Monday nights, and the lineups are always worth checking out. I’d highly recommend checking the calendar and catching a show…a nice audience, and very well organized! You can check out their schedule HERE.

And some new music! This quartet is brand new and features Anna Webber and Ed Rosenberg on tenor saxophones, myself on bass, and Jason Nazary on drums.

Here’s a video clip of (part of) one of the pieces from Haverchuck at Barbes’ Palimpsestic Series on January 15, 2014. Sorry for the audio clipping! Going to be posting some videos of the recent quartet performance as well. Coming soon…enjoy, and thanks for listening!

I’m very excited to be playing again with BeepHonk this coming Wednesday for Dave Ballou’s faculty recital at Towson University. BeepHonk is a band that was formed for a one-time-only collaboration through the Baltimore chapter of Out of Your Head. It was good enough that we (Dave Ballou, Anthony Pirog, AH, and Mike Kuhl) decided to do it regularly (as regularly as is possible), and write some music for the band. Last year I wrote a piece specifically for this band called Airports. Since there were no BeepHonk performances on the horizon I decided to put a band together here in NY (of Kenny Warren, Mike Gamble, and Devin Gray) to have it performed. It was awesomely fun and loose, and I’m excited to do it again with the guys who it was written for. The concert is free and it starts at 8:15p in the Towson Recital Hall.

You can get a sneak-peak of Airports right HERE performed by Adam Hopkins’ Over/Under with Kenny Warren-trumpet, Mike Gamble-guitar, AH-bass, and Devin Gray-drums.

I have some other upcoming shows that I’m very excited about that I’d like to share if you are free, willing, and available on any of these nights. I think they’ll be good! More info on all of these forthcoming:

Wednesday 3/13–Double Trio Bill at The Grotto (100 Forsyth Street). I’ll be playing in two sets, one with Dustin Carlson-guitar and Kate Pittman-drums, and the second with Achilles Kallergis-guitar and Nathan Ellman-Bell-drums. These will be two different but both very fun sets. Music starts at 8:30p

Sunday 3/24–Ideal Bread @ Douglass Street Music Collective. I am very honored to have been asked to play with Ideal Bread in the absence of their bass player Richard Giddens (who very unfortunately broke his hand on New Year’s Day). We did a mini-tour of New England in January and it was an amazingly good time both on-stage and off, in the van and not in the van. Ideal Bread is dedicated to playing the music of Steve Lacy arranged awesomely by Josh Sinton. The band is Josh Sinton-bari sax, Kirk Knuffke-cornet, and subbing for the great Tomas Fujiwara will be Chad Taylor on drums for this night.

April holds three very excited things that I’ll share more about as it gets closer:

My new trio with Anna Webber and Nathan Ellman-Bell will have our sophomore performance on April 4 at the Intuit Series in Ditmas Park.

I’m very honored to have been asked by Tomas Fujiwara to play a concert with his band the Hook-Up (a band I’ve loved since hearing their first album Actionspeak when it was released in 2010). There will be a performance on April 5 at Firehouse 12 in CT, and April 6 at Cornelia Street Cafe. The band is Tomas Fujiwara-drums, compositions, Jonathan Finlayson-trumpet, Brian Settles-sax, and Mary Halvorson-guitar.

And the third event(s) I’m really looking forward to are a three-state, three-day tour with Anna Webber’s American release of her new album Percussive Mechanics. It is seriously awesome music, and I can’t wait to play it. We’ll be playing shows at Cornelia Street on April 17, Windup Space (Baltimore) on April 20, and in Philadelphia on April 21. The band is Anna Webber-reeds, compositions, Oscar Noriega-reeds, Matt Mitchell-piano, Patricia Franceschy-vibraphone, Devin Gray AND Kate Pittman-drums. Party. For real.

And here’s a great picture of me and my friend TJ Huff from the last January February Marching Band show from a few weeks back. Also a party. For real.

As the year comes to a close (an amazing year in so many ways…including getting engaged to an amazing person!) I have just two more concerts, both on December 30, that I am supremely excited for. Just wanted to give a heads up…much more to come in 2013! The Birkfest concert makes the first time I’ve ever performed with my mentor Michael Formanek and my very good friend John Dierker. Then later that night I’ll join John in a tradition that takes place annually at the Red Room. Details: